Environmental and Hydrologic Systems Science

Hydropower facilities and the environments in which they operate are extremely diverse. Some facilities, like the Hoover Dam, thrive in the desert while others use local waterways in your hometown. There is a lot still to be learned about how ecosystems interact with hydropower facilities. Yet significant barriers still exist in furthering this research. The instruments, strategies, and tools that are currently used to monitor and understand the environmental impacts of hydropower facilities have critical limitations. Uncertainties about climate and weather conditions put environmental and operational landscapes in flux for many hydropower stakeholders. Without a solid understanding of the environments surrounding their facilities and accurate ways to predict weather patterns, hydropower stakeholders may struggle to provide reliable and affordable power to the grid.

Through its Environmental Hydrologic Systems Science Activity Area, WPTO aims to address these challenges and improve conditions for hydropower stakeholders. By expanding research and supporting the development of technology, WPTO hopes to provide developers and operators with the tools to more effectively identify and mitigate potential impacts to their facilities. Ultimately, this activity area paves the way for more effective and efficient operations at facilities and potentially reduced regulatory costs.

WPTO aims to address these challenges through the following approaches:

• Improve monitoring technologies to study river systems and evaluate environmental impacts,
• Develop technologies and strategies to avoid, minimize, or mitigate environmental impacts,
• Support the development of metrics to better evaluate environmental sustainability for new hydropower developments,
• Assess potential impacts of long-term hydrologic variations to hydropower, and
• Improve abilities to assess risk of potential methane emissions from reservoirs.